


when the hardest part is over we'll be here

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Coulson, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Sleeping Together, Support, Ward casts a long shadow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson keeps dreaming of Ward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the hardest part is over we'll be here

She would have never found out if it weren’t for the emergency stop they had to make somewhere outside Chicago. The fuselage withstood just fine but there’s an electronic component damaged that they can’t get their hands on until tomorrow and Coulson is both wary of spending the night idle so far from home and of leaving the plane. He tries to convince Daisy she could go if she wants, call one of the Quinjets and be in DC in a couple of hours.

“They put a bomb in our plane, Coulson,” she says. A tiny one but still a bomb. “It’s not like it’s a bad idea to wait one night for the parts.”

It wasn’t supposed to be an attack. They were supposed to investigate maybe a new Inhuman sighting. But it was a trap.

“I guess I could take the chance to advance some paperwork,” Coulson says, looking dubious as Daisy starts towards her bunk.

“Or you could sleep,” she suggests.

“Yeah.”

Doesn’t look like it, but she’s not going to press him. She’s been picking up on how things have been for him lately. Daisy herself gets into her sleepwear and lies in her bunk (she still finds it a bit strange that the new bunks are slightly bigger than in the Bus, but only slightly) but she grabs her tablet quickly and decides to advance some work as well.

She loses track of time quickly - like she always does when she’s working, Miles used to mock her for it - but a few hours later she gets interrupted by a noise outside. A noise coming from Coulson’s tiny office, she can tell. It’s right next to her bunk. 

The voice get a bit louder, more agitated. Then it quietens again, following a pattern.

Daisy gets up, not bothering to put on her shoes, and walks to the office. She realizes that this was the cause of that uncomfortable feeling at the pit of her stomach she’s been feeling for minutes before she actually heard the noises. Vibrations she was picking up without meaning too - she is still too green with that, and it’s not easy to tell her own sensations apart from those of people near her. Near not just in the geographical sense.

The door of the office is open and she can already see Coulson with his head on the desk, asleep, his gloved hand under his cheek.

Every muscle in his face seems to be twitching and Daisy wonders exactly what he’s dreaming about (a stupid question, she realizes too late) until she catches Ward’s name and muttered, desperate apologies. That’s when she decides to wake him up, curling her hands around his shoulder (the vibrations of his whole body, they just feel awful to her sensitive powers, so much that Daisy feels her stomach twist) and shaking him firmly. It might be selfish, because she doesn’t want to hear more of this, she doesn’t want to watch Coulson like this, doesn’t want her heart broken like that a second longer.

He doesn’t wake up immediately. It takes her a couple of attempts - each time she shakes his shoulder a bit softer, sensing him writhe into consciousness under her fingers.

Coulson looks up at her, confused, mouth half open.

“You were having a nightmare,” she says. “It sounded like a nightmare.”

Coulson instinctively draws his hand across his face, wiping the sweat from his cheeks and forehead. She can see (not hear) him swearing under his breath.

“I’ll get you some water,” she says, not waiting for him to nod.

She takes a moment to go back to his office afterwards, letting Coulson have a minute to himself if he needs it. Giving herself that time to figure out how to act with him, how to comfort someone after a nightmare. Until Miles no one has tried to do with with her, and it’s not the same thing, she figures. She can’t comfort him the way Miles used to when her nights got really bad.

How long has this been going on with him? Daisy gets a sinking feeling that this is nowhere near the first time he has this kind of dream. The notion is devastating, makes her want to clench fingers into fists, if it weren’t for the risk that Coulson might see her, and that wouldn’t help him at all.

She finds him sitting upright in his chair, looking extremely pale, but no longer confused. Maybe there’s a hint of relief on his face - Daisy knows that feeling, the realization that you are _out_. The whole scenario - shit, Daisy thought she had learned to forget - is sickeningly familiar.

He takes a big gulp of water from the bottle.

“I guess I don’t need to ask you what it was all about,” Daisy says, sitting on the desk, facing him, not mentioning she heard what he was saying, knowing he can tell anyway.

Coulson nods slowly.

“You shouldn’t have to feel bad for someone like that,” she adds, trying to swallow her own anger that a monster like Ward would have to be mourned by someone like Coulson, even in dreams.

“I know,” Coulson agrees.

“But it’s not like you can control it,” she says.

He leaves the water on his desk, pausing to choose his words (to fix his voice) before talking.

“I’d never killed someone when I had the option not to,” he admits. “Even when I killed Doctor Hall… I did it to save lives.”

“You didn’t have the option here either,” she says. “You know what he was. He would have found a way out. We’d be standing in a pool of someone’s blood right now probably, because of Ward. That’s what he does - what he did. You killed him to save lives.”

He nods but she can tell he doesn’t believe that himself. A part of him, anyway.

“All this time… I should have let Mike kill him, that first chance.”

“I’m glad it was me,” Coulson says. “I’m not glad it was me. I’m relieved it didn’t have to be anyone else.”

Daisy gets that, that’s who Coulson is, and she’s like that too, and right now she feels a bit bad about not trying harder to help in taking Ward down. She knew Ward would eventually get what was coming to him, and her team would take care of it, and she didn’t have to worry about it herself. But in the meantime Ward caused more pain (if only she had aimed at the head as she should, back in San Juan, she could have saved how many more) and she can understand how Coulson feels because Ward had to be stopped but right now she wishes it could have been _anyone but_ Coulson.

She’s been staring, and in the meantime Coulson seems to have recovered enough to put on a professional front.

“I’m okay now,” he tells Daisy. “You can go back to bed.”

“I could stay in here and we could work together,” she offers. She knows the feeling too well, of having a terrible nightmare and not wanting to go back to bed. Many a sleepless half-night in her life came from that.

“You don’t have to do that,” Coulson tries to wave her away, but she can see a hint of pleading in his eyes, and his voice is not completely on it. “You should go back to sleep.”

She reaches across the desk and covers Coulson’s hand with hers. He accepts the comforting touch quietly.

“Come on. I can sacrifice a couple of hours of sleep for this,” she says.

Whatever _this_ is Coulson doesn’t ask.

He just nods. “Thank you.”

Daisy gives his hand a little squeeze before getting up to grab her laptop.

 

+

 

They are having dinner in town, an impromptu outing after an exhausting but very successful mission. Mack is the one to suggest Italian and Coulson, Daisy and Joey agree. It goes well at first and Daisy wants to use the word “heartwarming”, maybe. Joey has a way of lighting up a room and Coulson is obviously delighted with the guy. He had been Daisy’s partner for the day, while Mack and Coulson run back-end.

They have a glass of wine first, laughing at Joey’s excited play-by-play account of the day’s events.

While they wait for the food to arrive Daisy notices Coulson’s behavior gradually changing. At first it’s like something is merely distracting him from the conversation, then it’s like he’s disturbed by something. He grows paler and paler and Daisy watches the muscles in his jaw tense. Mack and Joey don’t notice, though, engrossed in their own conversation. She can’t _not_ notice. By the time Coulson excuses himself to go to the toilet Daisy knows he’s lying, even before she sees him actually step outside the restaurant.

She excuses herself, sharing a knowing look with Mack - she hasn’t told her partner about the night on the plane, but they have discussed Coulson and Mack is worried, just as much as she is, though in his own way.

She finds Coulson just outside the door to the restaurant, and it takes him a moment to wipe the pained expression off his face and it’s too late and Daisy has seen it.

“I’m fine,” he tells her before he can say a word. “The food must have-”

“That’s not what happened.”

He gives her a confused look. Then it shifts, remembering who he’s talking to, where she comes from.

“I know what something like that looks like,” she explains.

Coulson doesn’t contest her assessment.

“It was the breadsticks,” he says.

“The breadsticks?”

“The sound, when they break. For a moment it sounded like - like bones. Like Ward’s ribs when I…”

She puts her hand on his shoulder lightly and for just a moment. She knows he might not want to be touched in this state. Breadsticks. Sensorial association.

“For me it was a very particular blend of fabric softener,” she tells him. “The family… they used that. I have never really learned how to stand that smell without a slight moment of panic.”

“Does that mean no more Italian restaurants for me?” he asks, trying to make a joke of it, but his voice is so tiny.

“I don’t know,” Daisy tells him, wishing she had a more comforting answer for him. She can never lie to Coulson.

She tries to think about what she _can_ do to help. Remembers what works for her.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk,” she says, grabbing his arm. “Get some fresh air.”

She texts Mack to let him know they are not coming back with him and Joey.

“I’m sorry I ruined your dinner.”

“Nah, it’s okay, I told Mack to ask them to put mine in a doggie bag.”

“Really?”

“Yours too,” she tells him.

The corner of Coulson’s lips curl a bit.

“It’s a nice night to walk anyway,” she adds.

It’s beginning to get warm and Daisy realizes months have passed since Coulson came back from that alien planet with Fitz and how he was changed and wasn’t at the same time. It’s not just what happened on the other side of that portal, it’s the weight of sleeplessness for so long.

“It’s not a great city for a night walk,” Coulson comments at some point, when the streets start getting narrower and a bit darker.

Daisy presses her body against his arm for a moment, touching their shoulders together.

“Aw, don’t be scared, I’ll protect you,” she tells him.

Now the smile is really there.

They keep on walking in silence.

Daisy starts thinking it’s strange how she still doesn’t consider this city her home, after two years, because she spends most of her time in the base, far outside town.

“Daisy…”

She is a bit distracted, lost in thought. “What?”

“Thank you.”

He puts his hands around her shoulders and draws her in for a hug. Daisy stumbles a bit into it, because she was not expecting him to do that, but she soon finds herself resting her head on his shoulder and touching her hand against his nape. Coulson curls his fingers gently above her hips.

“I don’t want to go back yet,” he says. “Do you mind walking a bit longer?”

It’s not like Coulson to ask for this kind of thing.

Daisy nods. 

She knows what he’s chasing. She knows _intimately_ how it feels to look for that moment when you are so exhausted that you know there won’t be any nightmares, knowing that’s the only way you can get any rest.

She nods again, brushing her lips across his cheek.

She doesn’t mind if they have to stay up all night, walk the city until morning.

Whatever it takes.

 

+

 

It happens when they share a hotel room during a recruitment mission.

“Hey,” she tells him afterwards, wrapping her arms around his neck easily, _naturally_ , and she climbs into his bed in the dark and curls her body against his chest. “Remember how you wanted to be there when I kept having dreams about Trip?”

His body tenses momentarily at the mention, like he didn’t expect her to ever bring that up or maybe even remember. Daisy doesn’t know if he’s crying. He could be. It doesn’t matter. She holds him.

It’s only after a while that she goes back to her tiny twin bed, grabbing the remote and turning the tv on, looking for something decent.

“Let’s just watch a movie,” she tells Coulson, the light from the tv screen flickering on his face and answering Daisy’s earlier question.

His grateful silence in agreement.

 

+

 

If she hadn’t broken up with Lincoln she wouldn’t have had to walk into Coulson’s office that night.

She had gone there for a drink - alone, ideally, and seeing Coulson there, having had the same idea himself, hit her with a complicated feeling of almost guilt for a moment, before realizing how absurd that is.

“Sorry, the beer is finished and I know you keep some scotch.”

She could have gone to May, she knows she keeps a stash, but May would have made her not-talk and then she would have made her go down to the gym and go three rounds against her about it. But this is one of those few times when Daisy doesn’t feel like punching something.

“That’s okay,” Coulson tells her, passing her the bottle. “Please help yourself.”

She downs the shot in one go, still standing by the desk.

“Wow,” he comments. “I’ve never seen you-”

“Lincoln and I broke up,” she says, in one go as well. She’s not sure Coulson wants to hear about this, but saying it out loud makes it more real and that’s something Daisy desperately needs.

Coulson frowns, like processing the meaning of her words requires a bit of struggle.

“He broke up with you?”

Daisy feels touched at Coulson’s small tone of indignation at the idea. For the first time in days - it’s not like she didn’t know this was coming - she feels like maybe not _everything_ in entirely wrong with her. Coulson obviously doesn’t think she’s all wrong and that counts.

“I broke up with him,” she explains, watching his face relax involuntarily.

“What happened?” Coulson asks.

And she thought coming here meant no questions. She takes a moment before answering, sitting on the desk just by Coulson’s side.

“Nothing happened,” she admits. “It was - it was _nice_. And of course twenty minutes later I’m wondering what is wrong with me that I can’t just be happy with having something nice. Sorry, sorry, you don’t want to hear about it.”

Coulson reaches out and wraps his left hand around Daisy’s knee for a moment, giving her an encouraging squeeze. She wonders how many drinks he had already had when she came into the room.

“Are you okay?” he asks, which is, well, nice to hear.

She shrugs.

Perhaps it wasn’t even nice - Lincoln definitely wasn’t, but Daisy understood his reasons - but it was better than feeling lonely. Maybe she regrets ending it, but she knows she would have regretted staying.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know that was unprofessional.” Coulson winces. “I promise it won’t interfere with… though I probably need to rethink the next couple of missions, the roster-”

“That doesn’t matter,” he tells her.

He shakes his head and grabs the bottle, pouring himself another drink. Daisy notices the tiredness around his eyes, and it’s easy to make the connection.

“Does it work for you?” she asks, gesturing towards the glass.

“A bit. But I don’t want to just use this to… mask it. I want to be okay.”

“You will never be,” she says. Coulson looks at her like he has been slapped. “Not really. But it’s okay. You live on.”

He nods. She’s not sure he understands just yet. It’s been months for him. You don’t start understanding it for years.

“I don’t want to talk about me tonight,” he tells Daisy.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have-” she feels embarrassed, feeling she has pushed a boundary.

Coulson shakes his head. “No I didn’t mean… You’ve tried so hard to help me. I don’t want it to be one-sided. You deserve people supporting you. Tonight you’re the one feeling down down. Can I help you?”

It’s a pretty direct speech from the Director, and she figures that she was right and maybe he’s a bit drunk.

“I think maybe I could use a hug,” she comments, lightly, not wanting to impose.

Coulson makes what she swears is a kind of “aw” noise at the back of his throat and basically drops his glass and goes to wrap his arms around her. Daisy thinks she’ll be more dignified but she’s not, she practically lunges at the hug, as if she had been waiting for it for weeks. For some reason Coulson’s body feels biggers than when she has hugged him, her arms seemingly reaching everywhere around Daisy. She sighs into his neck and the smell of scotch and exhaustion feels so companionable.

He lets her stay between his arms for a bit, for as long as she wants, that’s the important bit.

When she pulls back his shirt is all messed up and he looks sad. Sad _for her_. Daisy suddenly remembers she’s supposed to be heartbroken. She feels guilty that she isn’t.

“I’ll be okay. Not the first time I break up with a guy. At least this one didn’t turn out to be Hydra.” Coulson flinches for a moment. It’s only a moment but. Daisy looks down, thinking how unfair of her to say these things, when Coulson’s romantic failures have been a lot more painful.

“Stop thinking about others,” he tells her, squeezing her shoulders.

“What, reading minds is your superpower now?” she jokes.

“Not every mind. Not a superpower,” he says, with a tiny smile. “Maybe just a Daisy Johnson power.”

She smiles. It’s probably not like sensing vibrations like she does but the idea of a link between Coulson and her, a link he feels as well, is comforting for some reason. Maybe she just wants to stop feeling alone. She presses her body against him again, Coulson wrapping his arms around her easily once more, like they do this every night.

“You think you’ll sleep tonight?” she asks.

“I don’t think so,” he offers honestly.

She brushes her nose against his shoulder.

“Yeah me neither.”

 

+

 

It’s the first time he kills someone since Ward, and though Daisy saw him not even hesitate to pull the trigger she watches him closely afterwards and she can tell what’s going on in his head. He saved a couple of lives back there (including Mack’s) but that’s not the point. She saw his face afterwards and knew exactly what was going on in his mind.

When they finish the mission report that night Coulson seems reluctant to abandon his office.

“Are you scared of going to bed?” Daisy asks.

His jaw tenses, then the tension is released as he swallows hard.

“Yeah,” he says.

Daisy knows what she would like to do for him. She’s just never sure if Coulson is willing to accept her help.

She asks. “You think I could help?”

“Daisy.”

“Do you think I could help?” she repeats, more firmly.

“I don’t k- _yes_.”

“Then let’s go.”

Coulson doesn’t fight her.

They go by her quarters so that Daisy can change into her pajamas and grab a couple of things she might need in the morning. She wonders if someone sees them getting into Coulson’s room and what they would make of it. She really doesn’t care.

His room is slightly bigger than hers or the rest of the team’s, but it’s also awkwardly proportioned, obviously a storage room or an interrogation vault repurposed. 

She looks around (doesn’t really know if the room’s bareness is only recent, and tries not to think about that possibility) while Coulson disappears into the bathroom for a while. When he comes back he takes his prosthetic hand off and puts it away in its case. She notices how he is very purposely not looking at her while he does all this.

“You don’t normally take it off in front of me,” she comments. “Is it because it’s me?”

“Yes,” Coulson admits.

She nods. He was probably right to. She felt guilty for what Jiaying did for the longest time. She still does. Coulson shouldn’t have to consider whether she’s uncomfortable with his arm or not, but he was right thinking she would be.

“So, what’s your side?” she asks, gesturing at the bed.

She thinks she sees a slight smile darting across Coulson’s lips, as if he can see the absurd of the situation.

“Right side,” he replies.

“Cool,” she says, not saying that she prefers the left side anyway - or she did, with Miles, with Lincoln - thinking _compatible_ and not saying that either.

The process of getting into bed and under the sheets is a lot less awkward than one could have imagined and Daisy senses Coulson is way too grateful to have company at night to even be embarrassed about the details of it. She gets that. God she gets that.

Once they are both in bed Daisy gets closer to him immediately, careful not to press herself against his back in a way that might make him feel uncomfortable. She rests one hand over Coulson’s tentatively. He lets her and she starts relaxing, almost missing the fact that he isn’t. Relaxing. At all.

“Coulson?”

He grabs her be the wrist and draws her arm over his, placing her hand above his heart. Daisy wasn’t expecting something so direct, she just thought he might not want to spend the night alone. She’s okay with the idea and moves a bit to cuddle him, then she notices something’s wrong. He’s shaking slightly under her touch and when she tries to withdraw he holds her hand tighter.

“ _Coulson_? Are you okay?”

He holds Daisy’s index between his fingers and presses the pad against his chest; she can feel both the outline of his scar and the curve of his sternum through the fabric of the t-shirt.

“This is how I did it,” he says, pressing her hand harder against his chest. “Crushed the ribs. The broken bone punctured the heart. It was quick.”

The tone of his voice is about to make Daisy cry.

She scrambles to find something - _anything_.

“I could help you,” she tells him. “I don’t know if it’ll put you to sleep, but I can help you relax.”

“What-?”

“With my powers,” she says, pulling away from him and propping herself so they can look at each other. “I can relax your muscles. It’ll feel good at least.”

“Feel good…” he repeats, like he hasn’t felt good in a long time.

“But only if you trust me.”

“I trust you,” he says without hesitating.

She sits up on the bed, grabbing Coulson’s arm and pulling him gently until he’s on his back, looking at the ceiling.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she tells him.

“Could you hurt me?”

“The first time I tried it on myself I gave myself nausea,” she tells him, in the spirit of full disclosure. “But that was, like, _one_ time.”

Coulson flashes her quite a disarming smile.

“I must be crazy,” he comments, staring into Daisy’s eyes.

She starts with the top of his shoulders, nothing sensitive and tension usually pools there more than anywhere else. She doesn’t have to touch him to know this. But she touches him, drawing her hands across his shoulders without using her powers at all first, until Coulson seems comfortable with it. She feels where the muscles are knotted and she starts vibrating them lightly.

“Ah,” Coulson is surprised. “I didn’t know you could do this.”

Daisy smiles. “I’ve been practicing a lot on this. It always worried me, how destructive my powers were, but it specially disturbed me when I applied them directly to a body. I did it with Raina. And I did it with Jiaying - I fought her until her old wounds opened again and I would have killed her if Cal hadn’t spared me.”

She bites the inside of her cheek for a moment. Long enough that she feels like ghost of Coulson’s comforting touch on the small of her back.

“It made me feel sick, using my powers on people,” she explains. “So I wanted to learn how to do the opposite. Maybe help people with my vibrations, when they’re hurt or in pain. Even if it’s just a little. So far I can only get the same results as a really good massage but I’m working on it.”

Coulson stares out at her.

“That’s very you,” he says. “It makes sense.”

“I think so.”

Of course touching Coulson’s body is a lot different than touching her own body, where the control is total. She had once tried it on Lincoln, when he had sprained a wrist on a mission - but Lincoln didn’t want her to use her powers on him (he never again used his powers on her, the way he had done when she met him, and Daisy thinks that’s terribly sad and feels like a failure for not being able to help him), he didn’t even want her to use her powers when they were in bed. 

Technically now she’s in bed with Coulson, but that’s not the same thing. She covers his chest with her hands, but careful not to touch him anywhere near his scar. She concentrates extra hard, trying to make the vibrations over him feel like gentle ocean waves breaking against Coulson’s body. That does the trick and she starts feeling it, Coulson finally relaxing in a way that might make a difference. The strained, twisted feeling he’s been walking around with for months now seems to subdue. She knows it will not last, but for the moment she would be satisfied with helping even for a moment. It’s like she can feel him sink into the mattress, relieved. Daisy smirks, liking the feeling of power over Coulson like this, the idea that she can actually affect him for the better. It has been so frustrating, watching on as he was in pain, and this is probably selfish but she feels relieved too, when she gets the knots of muscles and guilt to loosen a bit for one night. She pulls back, making the vibrations ebb away gradually, until the stop.

Coulson turns his head on the pillow and look up at her. 

“I didn’t know you could do _that_ ,” he breathes, closing his eyes for a moment.

She runs her fingers across his ribcage. It’s a quick, friendly touch to get his attention.

“I should be trying to find your center, probably, but I’m not that good at it yet.”

“Oh yes, it’s all about the center,” he comments, looking amused. “May tried to teach me relaxing techniques too, years ago, but I was a terrible learner.”

“I don’t think she’s very satisfied with my progress, either,” Daisy says. “But I keep trying.”

She rests her hand over Coulson’s stomach and he holds his breath for a moment. That should be the center. It gives her a bit of a rush, Coulson letting her touch him so intimately, because during their whole friendship he had been so physically guarded and Daisy often felt that barrier, like he was impenetrable in that sense.

“You feel that?” she asks in a soft voice.

“Yes, it’s -” he swallows, and she feels the lower half of his body relax immediately, like butter melting on a pan. “It’s _amazing_.”

“It’s not that amazing,” she says, smiling. “It’s like taking some strong muscle relaxant. Except you don’t need prescription. I just need to like you.”

“I’m glad,” Coulson tells her. Sporting a silly and not entirely voluntary grin. “That you like me.”

Daisy stops vibrating his body, keeping one anchoring hand on his chest.

“I should have warned you, it can make you a bit dizzy.”

He makes a definitely dizzy noise and she knows he’s ready to sleep.

“Now lie on your side.”

He does, and Daisy goes back under the covers as well, wiggling her way next to Coulson again.

“Are you going to use your powers some more?” he asks when he feels her hand on his arm.

“No. Just regular human touch.”

“That’s good too,” he says, settling down as she ordered, speaking in an already-sleepy voice.

Daisy touches her mouth to his back, barely, wanting to be comforted by the company too. She remembers how good it felt when he hugged her in his office, when she asked him to.

“Regular human _cuddling_ is fine too?” she asks.

Coulson makes an amused sleepy noise.

She takes it as a yes.

 

+

 

She hands him his second jacket so he can pack it in the suitcase. It’s clear he’s not sure where he’s going - just that he’s going - and he’s not sure what weather he should be packing for. Coulson is not what you would call fussy but he seems to be overthinking the whole wardrobe

“I’m not sure…” he starts.

“Stop stalling.”

“But what if you need help?” he protests, trying to sound Directorial.

“We’ll call you. Also, we’re pretty good at this without you.”

“I guess that’s true,” he says and Daisy chuckles and touches his arm.

She’s is looking at him like she is going to miss him, but like she’s personally happy he’s doing this.

“You need a break, Coulson,” she tells him. “No one is going to blame you for taking a couple of weeks.”

She watches him finish packing and watches him start stalling again. This time it feels different. He’s not stalling leaving, it’s leaving her. Daisy smiles, because she has figured out he has no clue what’s going on.

“Are you going to call me?” she asks.

“Call you?” like he doesn’t understand the question.

“Yes. On the phone. To let me know you’re fine. To tell me if you find some cool restaurant in… wherever you are going.”

“I’ll call you if you want to.”

“Yeah,” she says, casually. “Keep me posted.”

She sees him fidgeting with the lapel of his jacket - it took him ages to choose that one, Daisy had not anticipated spending her morning watching her boss pack up a suitcase.

“What is it?” she asks, watching his quietly nervous fingers.

It’s only when Coulson looks up at her, slowly, that she realizes that he had been avoiding her eyes.

She smiles.

“Will you…”

“Will I wait for you? Yes,” Daisy says, standing on her toes a bit and pressing a soft kiss against his mouth.

Coulson gasps silently, surprised, but he closes his eyes and kisses her back just a little. Gently. close-mouthed, but it’s there. His fingers curl around the air above her hip, obviously wanting to touch her, not going further than a ghost touch.

“We should probably talk about this when we come back,” he says when Daisy pulls back. It doesn’t sound too ominous, but she already knew he wouldn’t be against it.

“Are you really that surprised?” she asks.

“A bit.”

“Well, I did sleep with you,” she points out.

He lets out a low chuckle.

“Yes, well, now that you mention it, maybe I’m not that good at reading the signs.”

She smiles, pressing one hand against his chest. He doesn’t pull away.

“Have a good trip, Phil.”

 

+

 

Two years later he still dreams of Ward.

It’s not like Ward ever went away, completely.

Even when he tries to hide it Daisy can always tell - and he knows this, so at some point he stopped trying to hide it. Daisy said that something about the way his vibrations change when he’s having that particular nightmare. She said it feels like nothing else.

Sometimes he just hopes he doesn’t wake her - fat chance, she told him this too, sleeping together and when she’s so tuned in with him. Coulson doesn’t have her powers but he knows what she means. The connection between them. He feels Daisy stir awake almost at the same time he opens his eyes and realizes what is happening - realizes that he’s _out_ , that he doesn’t have to stay on that place and see it happen, make it happen, over and over.

Daisy lets out a questioning grunt as she grabs his shoulder.

“Go back to sleep,” he tells her, reaching back to touch her leg. “You have an early call tomorrow.”

“Yeah, a new fresh batch coming over from the Cocoon so I can read them the protocols in person,” she whines, poking her head from over Coulson’s shoulder and pressing her face against his neck out of instinct, just wanting to touch him. “What fun.”

“You love it,” Coulson replies.

She gives him a quick peck on the cheek. “Shut up.”

She sits up slowly and Coulson copies her. There’s only the physical bitter aftertaste of the nightmare, because as soon as he wakes up next to Daisy he knows he’s safe and his mind and his heart drop the burden. His muscles, though, still remember.

“You want me to do the thing?” Daisy asks.

He nods.

She moves quickly, scooting to sit behind him, while Coulson just settles between her powerful legs, at the level of her knees so she can have room enough to work. Soon he feels her hands slipping under his t-shirt, the callused fingers brushing against the length of his spine a couple of times, comforting him.

“You’re pretty tense,” she says.

“I didn’t mean to.”

The nightmare took him by surprise, they don’t come often these days. 

“Ready?” she asks. She always asks. It’s not something he can begrudge. But it’s not something she ever has to worry about it. The way he sees it - the way he has always seen it, almost from the beginning - it’s part of her, her powers, using them on him doesn’t bother him, it’s just a different kind of touch, but just as natural to him, just as _her_.

He can even feel it in his bones, the little harmless tingle, like Daisy is shaking his whole being into its correct place. Its right place, yes, Coulson think that’s a way good to put it, everything between him and Daisy in the last couple of years. Thing falling in place.

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah? And this?”

The vibrations change - _this_ technique is much more familiar.

Coulson squirms out of her range, shaking his head.

“Okay, that’s a little _too nice_. I want you to get some rest, after all.”

She laughs.

“You think you can sleep now?” she asks.

He turns his head to look at her, kissing the outline of her shoulder.

“I think so.”

She locks her hands together over his stomach, nibbling gently at his nape.

“Because if you can’t sleep…”

He chuckles. And if he hadn’t gone twice earlier - at some point she’s bound to find out he’s too old and hopeless, right? Coulson keeps waiting for that to happen - and if she didn’t need the sleep he’d be tempted.

“I’m not the one with the early call tomorrow,” he tells her.

“Shit,” Daisy says under her breath. 

She rearranges both their positions, lying down next to each other, so that she can rest her head on his chest.

“You okay?” she asks, quietly, after a while, when Coulson is wondering if she had already fallen asleep.

Sometimes he wonders if they would be be here, like this, right now, if he had never started having dreams about Ward, if Daisy hadn’t found out and wanted to help. It gives him too much existential vertigo to think about it like that, and he doesn’t want to imagine an alternative universe where he’s not here right now, and Daisy is not right here, with her gentle pressure over his heart as she holds him. He never regretted killing Ward, but looking at it like this, what came after, he doesn’t regret knowing the frailty of bones either.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he tells Daisy, even though he can sense it, her worry, after all this time.

“Okay,” she says, patting his chest comfortingly. “Go back to sleep.”

_Go back to sleep._

_I’m here._

Coulson doesn’t need to read minds to know what she means.


End file.
